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Published: April 25th 2013
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The Arequipa Cooking Experience is great for learning to make a certain dish and building your confidence level in your abilities. It WILL NOT instantly turn you into a world class cook of Peruvian cuisine, but you will know how to make the dish that you signed up for. Being the first to sign up is the trick. If you are first, YOU get to select the menu item that you will prepare. Get in touch with them as early as possible:
http://www.peruviancookingexperience.com/ If memory serves, the three menu choices are lomo saltado, ceviche and chorillos pan fried fish, and rocoto relleno. Rocoto peppers are the chiles that make Habanero peppers cry. Since my wife, Rose, is Peruvian she is already an accomplished lomo saltado cook, so she selected ceviche, a dish she has never made prior to this class.
The class starts of with a trip (and a nice uphill hike) to the central market. Chances are the items needed for the class will already be bought and waiting for you, but you will get the opportunity to see the market and lots of new and different fruits and veggies from Peru. When they ask how many
varieties of potatoes are found in Peru, you can amaze them by telling them 3000. Be sure to remember how to get there as you will want to come back on your own and spend some time looking at everything.
The ceviche class starts out with the slicing and dicing of chiles, onions and squeezing of limes (called
limones in Peru). After all the ingredients are ready, you will cut the fish into chunks and mix everything together. Stir everything up and go to the table and prepare to amaze yourself. After that, each pair of cooks is taken to the stove to prepare the fried fish. Ours came out really good (Be sure to check out the pictures at the bottom of the page.).
And then comes the Pisco Sour class if you signed up for it. Do sign up because it is worth it. My classmates REALLY enjoyed the class since they got to watch me drench myself in a freshly made Pisco Sour. The instructor starts out with a lecture about the various types of Pisco and then he does a demonstration of a blender style. I wasn't THAT fond of the blender style but
it was drinkable. Then, the students get to make their own Pisco Sours in a shaker. So, there I am, dutifully putting the ice, the Pisco, the lime juice and a bit of egg white for foam into the shaker. I put the lid and the cap on and looked really professional shaking and shaking UNTIL the cap came off during the part of the shaking that was coming back towards me. Right in the face and the rest went down my chest, with a little splashing action for my neighbors. Rose was trying to take a picture of me looking all cool and stuff and I could clearly see she was shocked by what happened. All I could think was to tell her "TAKE THE PICTURE!" See below. A good time was had by all.
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